Tag: Holly Throsby

Synopsis: It wasn’t just one person who went missing, it was two people. Two very different people. They were there, and then they were gone, as if through a crack in the sky. After that, in a small town like Goodwood, where we had what Nan called ‘a high density of acquaintanceship’, everything stopped. Or at least it felt that way. The normal feeling of things stopped.

Goodwood is a small town where everyone knows everything about everyone. It’s a place where it’s impossible to keep a secret.

In 1992, when Jean Brown is seventeen, a terrible thing happens. Two terrible things. Rosie White, the coolest girl in town, vanishes overnight. One week later, Goodwood’s most popular resident, Bart McDonald, sets off on a fishing trip and never comes home.

People die in Goodwood, of course, but never like this. They don’t just disappear.

As the intensity of speculation about the fates of Rosie and Bart heightens, Jean, who is keeping secrets of her own, and the rest of Goodwood are left reeling.

Rich in character and complexity, its humour both droll and tender, Goodwood is a compelling ride into a small community, torn apart by dark rumours and mystery.

~*~

Goodwood is told in a first person point of view from the perspective of Jean Brown. It is her story of a period of time during her surge towards adulthood, where she is hiding her own secrets from those closest to her, but also tells the story of two missing people and the response of the town she lives in.

When Rosie White goes missing, the town is sent into turmoil. Whispers about what may have happened – mostly surrounding the idea that she ran away, circulate. Set in 1992, the Belanglo State Forest backpacker murders are woven into the plot – and the town begins to buzz about Rosie’s possible fate if she had walked out of town and tried to get a ride somewhere. When Bart MacDonald goes missing a week later, secrets begin to unravel: Rosie’s family begins to come apart at the seams, and drastic measures are taken to ensure their safety, other residents whisper and do their best to cope, and others hide away and keep the truth to themselves, even from the local police officer, keen to aid everyone as best he can and keep things running smoothly.

As Jean witnesses this, her teenage mind keeps her preoccupied with her own secrets and fascination with the new girl in town, Evie, who arrived in the days before Rosie disappeared. Caught between her own secrets and life, and the desire to know what has happened, and the fascination and worry that such disappearances in a town where people die, but don’t disappear as Rosie and Bart have, Jean’s story is fraught with teenage desire to remain innocent yet at the same time, grow up ad find out who they are. Jean’s secrets are slowly revealed throughout the book and hinted at, but they don’t dominate the story – the storyline involving one of her biggest secrets is handled with care and just happens to be a part of who she is, without making it the large focal point. The novel reaches a climax when the secrets about what really happened to Rosie and Bart start to fall apart, and those who know something begin to come forward, their fear dissolving across the course of the novel. A well-written debut that tells a mystery and a coming of age story that engages the reader, and allows them to try to solve the mystery with the clues that are dropped every now and then.